


Complicity

by Garonne



Category: The Professionals
Genre: M/M, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-22 00:59:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11369265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Garonne/pseuds/Garonne
Summary: A junior minister's house had been firebombed in the middle of the night, and the only other person present was a friend -- a male friend -- who had just happened to be staying over. Add to that the spare bedroom sheets unconvincingly rumpled, and the minister himself very anxious that his overnight visitor be left out of the official report, and you didn't need Doyle's instincts to know why."Not easy, living that life," Doyle said once he and Bodie were back outside again, alone in the car.He could have meant 'working in the Northern Ireland office', or Bodie could have pretended that was what he'd meant. But Bodie didn't do that. He looked up and caught Doyle's eye, no humour in his face for once."No, it isn't," he said quietly.They dropped the subject then, like the hot potato it was, but Doyle still had this funny feeling they were both speaking from personal experience.





	Complicity

Within a few minutes of meeting a man, Doyle usually had a fairly good idea which way he swung. It was an instinct, same as his instinct for sniffing out criminals. Not that he'd ever put the two things in the same category in his head, even if being queer had been a crime for most of his lifetime.

It wasn't really surprising he was so good at spotting queers, since he was one himself. Lapsed, you might say, not practising, but still.

His instinct wasn't always a hundred percent reliable, though. He wasn't too sure about Bodie at first.

He and Bodie had been working together over a month, the first time they skirted round the issue. A junior minister's house had been firebombed in the middle of the night -- minor damage only, but still plenty to interest CI5. And the only other person present was a friend -- a male friend -- who had just happened to be staying over. Add to that the spare bedroom sheets unconvincingly rumpled, and the minister himself very anxious that his overnight visitor be left out of the official report, and you didn't need Doyle's instincts to know why.

"Not easy, living that life," Doyle said once he and Bodie were back outside again, alone in the car.

He could have meant 'working in the Northern Ireland office', or Bodie could have pretended that was what he'd meant. But Bodie didn't do that. He'd been digging around in the glove compartment for a packet of crisps, and now he looked up and caught Doyle's eye, no humour in his face for once.

"No, it isn't," he said quietly.

They dropped the subject then, like the hot potato it was, but Doyle still had this funny feeling they were both speaking from personal experience.

Soon after, Cowley changed the status of their partnership from 'trial' to 'confirmed'. Doyle was pleased. He'd liked working with Bodie from the start. And if Bodie had any objections he was hiding them well. They started to spend time together out of work too, instead of going their separate ways. Doyle discovered Bodie played a decent game of tennis, hated swimming -- _'Wrinkly fingers? No thanks.'_ \-- and was always up for a bit of friendly competition in the gym or on the shooting range. Always up for a pint or a night out too. 

Doyle and Bodie got on well. That was obvious to everyone, and made them an easy target for the jokes and innuendo of the lazy or the less witty.

Doyle was impressed by the way jokes seemed to roll off Bodie, no matter whether the insinuation was that he was sleeping with Doyle, secretly rooting for Arsenal, or nicking Anson's chocolate biscuits. Of course everyone and every topic was fair game for a laugh when you worked for CI5, but to Doyle, it felt different when it was partially -- or potentially -- true. When it touched on something he'd been keeping hidden away for years. He didn't like the teasing. Didn't show it, of course, but he didn't exactly join in or encourage it either. Bodie did, throwing himself into the jokes, camping it up. He obviously didn't worry about the saying _no smoke without fire_. Maybe his motto was more _best defence is a good offense_.

Four months into their partnership, they finally pulled off a big enough success to earn them the right to a holiday -- more than a day or two off on the trot. It was their first holiday since going on active service, and they took it together, with a couple of girls, in a cottage in the Yorkshire Dales belonging to Bodie's girlfriend's family. Doyle discovered that Bodie could cook. Not just the tinned beans and jars of sauce Doyle usually saw him with, but proper cooking: lasagna, shepherd's pie, and even a roast dinner on their last day. He also discovered that Bodie treated even a game of Snap like high-stakes poker, and that he had a rather flashy collection of pyjamas.

They got back just in time to find themselves roped into CI5's biggest op that year, the breaking of an organised crime network that spread right across London, and whose principal purpose seemed to be to finance the IRA. Doyle was undercover for three weeks on that one, working in a bookie's in Peckham, as a temporary replacement for someone who'd met with an unexpected accident. Bodie spent the time on obbo duty with a rotating selection of other agents. He also served as Doyle's contact, meeting him in a greasy spoon on the Old Kent Road on Doyle's afternoons off.

By the time of their third meeting, there was no doubt the bookies was a front. Doyle had managed to get a pretty good idea of the scale of the money laundering going on behind it. What made the place most interesting to CI5, however, was the backroom that served as a meeting place for some of the most powerful men in the firm.

"Things are heating up," Doyle said quietly, as soon as Bodie had sat opposite him at a secluded corner table.

"Yeah, this end too," Bodie said. "The Old Man doesn't intend to hang around."

He opened a copy of the Racing Post, pointed casually at a time and date -- the following day -- and raised an eyebrow.

Doyle frowned. "That's not during my shift."

"Think you can swing it so it is?"

"Yeah."

"And Mickey Mouse and Bananaman?"

"Yeah, they'll both be there."

A couple of truck drivers took the table close by, and Bodie leaned back.

"Any tips for the 3:10 at Wolverhampton?" he said in a louder voice. "Got my eye on Lord Lexington."

"You're not the only one who does. He's backed in from 20-1 to evens."

Bodie grimaced. 

Doyle gave him an unsympathetic look. "Yeah, should have got a move on earlier, mate."

He reached for Bodie's copy of the Racing Post, and when he handed it back, there was a thin sheaf of documents tucked between the pages, destined for Cowley.

Bodie downed his coffee and stuck his paper under his arm. "Take care, mate."

"Yeah, see you round."

_See you tomorrow,_ was what Doyle had meant, though he didn't catch a glimpse of Bodie until the bust was over. They met out in front of the bookies, on a pavement covered with shattered glass, surrounded by the sirens of the ambulances as they finally moved in.

Doyle could see Bodie's gaze scanning him quickly and intensely from head to toe. Bodie's worry was reasonable enough -- Doyle was emerging from a building now riddled with gunfire.

He was fine, and he saw Bodie relax as soon as he'd figured that out too. Bodie didn't say anything, just gave him a dig in the arm, and then jerked his head towards the street, meaning 'Cowley's waiting for us.'

Things were quiet in the weeks following the IRA bust. They spent most of their time on an op led by Smith and Jax. Those two got the most interesting bits, naturally enough, and Bodie and Doyle spent their days chauffeuring a pair of South-East Asian diplomats around London's cultural attractions. The calm broke abruptly, with a five-hour hostage situation, ending in a shootout and a near brush with death for all of them. Smith ended up in hospital with a bullet in the stomach, and Cowley gave the rest of them an unexpected Friday night off, and a Saturday to go with it.

It was the first time in months their free time had lined up with the regular working week. Doyle relished that special Friday night feeling. A chance to go out with the rest of the world and pretend he had a normal job.

As soon as they were out of Cowley's office, Bodie turned to him, rubbing his hands together, his face pure glee. 

"What do you say we go out on the town? Pamela has a friend from work she wanted me to set up with someone. Says she's a lovely girl, suit you down to a tee."

He looked at Doyle expectantly.

Doyle hesitated. He was free, his last girlfriend having moved on while he was undercover. Normally he'd be well up for a night out with a cheerful Bodie, the good-natured Pamela, and a 'lovely girl'. Tonight, though, he was still on edge, his skin itching, his whole body in the mood for something different, something dangerous.

"You know, sometimes I -- "

He stopped short.

Bodie's eyebrows went up. "Sometimes you what?"

_Sometimes I want something else,_ Doyle thought but didn't say.

It seemed to be hovering in the air between them, like Bodie had already read his mind. Doyle opened his mouth, then shut it again. He should just say it, he thought. _It's been ten years since I last had a cock in my mouth, and sometimes I just feel like that instead._

But he had no idea how Bodie would react, and they were in the middle of HQ, two feet from Cowley's office door. And -- perhaps the most dangerous thing of all -- that would bring other demons out of the closet. Because if he admitted it, and Bodie admitted it, then the nebulous possibilities between them might become actual possibilities. And that was a complete no-go area. Lousiest idea of the century.

"Well, come on, what about it?" Bodie was saying.

Doyle shrugged. "Yeah, why not?"

Pamela's friend Cheryl turned out to live up to her description, and more. Doyle ended up seeing much more of her than Bodie ever had of Pamela. Doyle and Cheryl went out for almost three months, and only ended it because she was moving back to Bristol for a new job. They decided what they'd had together had been great, but not enough to make it worthwhile driving back and forth across the south of England.

It was also around that time that he and Bodie graduated to being the leading agents on their ops, rather sooner than Doyle had expected. He didn't know whether to take it as a compliment to himself and Bodie, or as a sign of CI5's extraordinarily high rate of invaliding out. Bodie seemed to think nothing of their fast promotion, but he'd made sergeant in less than two years in the Paras.

It was Bodie who got shot on their first such op, though it could as easily have been Doyle. It had been nobody's fault, and Cowley forgave Bodie much more quickly than Bodie seemed to forgive himself. Bodie was on the sick list for three weeks, and Doyle, teamed with Jax, realised for the first time just how well he and Bodie had gelled. It was true what they said: you never appreciate something till you lose it.

"Miss me?" Bodie asked as soon as he was back on duty. "I noticed a distinct lack of grapes and hospital visits."

"I was in Manchester, wasn't I?" Doyle said placidly, his conscience at peace, with the knowledge that he'd phoned Bodie five times in the two weeks he'd been in hospital. "And you don't like grapes."

"That's not the point, Ray."

And Bodie treated him to an exhaustive description of how lonely he'd been in hospital, with only the nurses to keep him company, plus half the typing pool and several of the other agents. So Doyle let him buy those tuna sandwiches which stunk up the car for days and which Bodie adored -- which was of course what Bodie had been really after all along.

They'd been working together six months by the time a senior diplomat got himself kidnapped, and Doyle had to charm his way into the heart -- or at least the flat -- of the woman who'd last seen him alive.

Cowley's briefing included several photos of the lady, and of course Bodie couldn't resist a laugh at Doyle's expense.

"Well, Ray, think you can manage to convince her you're pining away for love of her? Not exactly your type, is she?"

Doyle looked down at the photo in the file, with the steel-rimmed glasses and severe hair cut. "It won't be a problem."

"No, you're a decent enough actor," said Cowley, surprising them both with the praise. "Now get on with it."

Out in the car a few minutes later, Bodie paused before starting the engine. He turned to Doyle, looking at him through half-closed eyes, his expression unreadable.

"Sometimes I wonder if it's an act for you all the time."

There was quite a time lapse between that comment and the one it referred to, but Doyle could follow Bodie's mind in the dark by now.

He knew what Bodie meant, all right. He just didn't know how to react. Pretend to misunderstand? Punch him in the face? Shrug it off with a joke about Bodie being the camp one? But Bodie didn't sound like he was taking the piss. He sounded like he genuinely wanted to know.

Doyle took a gamble.

"Nah, it isn't an act. I like birds. That's why I see so much of them." He paused. "How about you?"

Bodie shrugged. "You know I'm no actor, mate."

It wasn't even true, but that seemed to be all he had to say on the subject. After a moment's silence, Doyle reached for the R/T to say they were leaving, and Bodie started the car.

Christmas was just round the corner. They were working Christmas Day, as the new boys on the rota. First Christmas in CI5. They had three days off in a row after Christmas, though, just before New Year's. Doyle didn't drive up north to see any of his scattered brothers or sisters, but he did call his mother on Christmas Day to get told off for not coming. He didn't know what Bodie did. If Bodie had family, he'd never mentioned them. He disappeared off for the three days and turned up again on New Year's Eve.

January brought a new influx of recruits to the B-squad, and a handful to the A-squad. Bodie and Doyle found themselves saddled with one of them, an ex-fireman from Lancashire called Alfred Devereaux. Their first op with him, surprisingly enough, was a complete success. No one so much as broke a fingernail.

They dropped Devereaux off at a tube station afterward -- wouldn't do to have him get uppity by chauffeuring him all the way home. Then they stopped off for a pint at the pub on the corner of Doyle's new street. It was the first time they'd been there since he'd moved into his latest flat.

"Devereaux is shaping up all right," Doyle commented, once they were installed at a table with two pints.

"Yeah. Smart lad. And the girls are all over him, I noticed. Good-looking fellow." Bodie could have simply left it there, Doyle thought. After all, it was a perfectly innocent comment to make. A man could say that about another man and not mean anything by it. But Bodie went on, "Don't you think?"

"Not my type," Doyle said lightly.

"What is your type?"

Doyle raised an eyebrow. Type, as in taste in men? Were they going to talk about this? Bodie was still looking at him, face placid. He hadn't sounded like he meant Doyle to take it as a joke.

Doyle hesitated, then thought, fuck it, and went for it. He met Bodie's eye as he spoke.

"My type? Bit more... I dunno. Bit less 'underwear model'."

Bodie let out a snort of laughter. "Know what you mean." He took a long drink of his pint. "He would be considered attractive, though, wouldn't he?"

"'Would be considered'?" Doyle repeated. "Not your type then either, is he?"

He could hardly believe he was asking.

"I don't like 'em pretty." Bodie's gaze flicked sideways, meeting Doyle's only for a second. "Bit more... physical, that's more in my line."

"Can't argue with you there, mate," Doyle said.

He felt oddly relaxed. This was surreal. He'd never had a conversation like this with anyone before, not even the blokes he'd messed around with back in the day. With Bodie he felt protected by an unspoken agreement that they'd never do anything about it, with each other or with anyone else.

Bodie drained his glass and set it down on the table with a thud. "Anyway, it's all theoretical, innit?"

"Theoretical?"

Bodie elaborated. "Stick to birds, mate. Safer."

"Oh. Yeah."

.. .. ..

Neither of them brought up the subject again over the next few weeks. 

Towards the end of January, Cowley sent them down to the depths of rural Shropshire on the round-the-clock watch of a large, isolated country house. They arrived late one evening, along with Anson and McCabe, and set up camp in an abandoned farmhouse on the hillside overlooking the target.

Anson and McCabe pulled the short straw and got the night-time shift. They settled in at the upstairs windows, while Doyle and Bodie spread out their groundsheets and sleeping bags in the downstairs sitting room. There was no furniture, and the chimney had been bricked up. They'd put up blackout curtains, so they could use their pocket torches, but CI5's budget hadn't stretched to a portable heater.

It was a freezing cold night, raindrops pounding on the roof and windows. Doyle hurried into his sleeping bag, cursing the hard ground beneath him. At least it was floorboards and not concrete.

Bodie had gone out the back for a piss. He came back grumbling under his breath and shaking raindrops off his mac.

"You're just sour because we got pulled off the Goswaithe job," Doyle said. "Had your eye on Goswaithe's sister, hadn't you?"

Bodie scowled at him. "She's off-limits." He took off his wet shoes and trousers and got into his sleeping bag, letting out a long, deep sigh as soon as he was warm and comfortable. "It's always forbidden ones that are the most attractive. Wonder why that is?"

"Like Sally?" Doyle said slyly.

Bodie gave a derisory snort at that. 

Doyle was lying back with his eyes closed now. He didn't bother to open them. He could imagine Bodie's innocent look perfectly well without seeing it.

"Don't pretend you haven't got your eye on her, Bodie. I was watching you in Cowley's car yesterday."

"No sleeping with other agents on the A-squad," Bodie said in the atrocity he liked to call his Scottish accent.

"Doesn't mean you can't enjoy the tension, though," Doyle said. "It's nice, sometimes, bit of tension."

Bodie didn't answer.

Doyle opened his eyes just in time to see Bodie raise his head. Their eyes met, and suddenly Doyle was thinking of other agents on the A-squad who were off-limits to each other.

"Yeah, it is," Bodie said, his voice quieter and deeper than Doyle had expected.

Doyle swallowed. The sitting room seemed to have a lot less air in it than it had half a minute ago. Bodie's gaze was intense, something flickering in the depths that Doyle wasn't sure he could read.

Finally Doyle blinked, and Bodie's mouth twitched in a self-deprecating grin. He let his head fall back, so that Doyle could only see the top of his nose over the edge of his sleeping bag.

"Go to sleep, Doyle."

.. .. ..

They were flirting. You couldn't put any other name to it. Doyle was willing to admit that, at least in the privacy of his own head. All Bodie's cheeky grins and Doyle's deliberately catty comments, Bodie's hand on Doyle's shoulder or Doyle tickling Bodie's ribcage to wake him in the car

Doyle was sure, if they really tried, they could turn each other on like a shot. They didn't try, of course. Keep it low-key, keep it safe, that's the ticket.

They'd been partners over a year when they wound up in a pub in Preston late one evening, getting in a last pint before a quick night's sleep and then the long drive back down south the next morning.

They were at a table near the bar, and there was a man on one of the bar stools who'd been watching Doyle for the last half hour.

"He's giving you the eye, mate," Bodie said in his needling voice. "Aren't you going to take him up on it?"

Doyle felt his eyes widen. He wasn't surprised Bodie's sharp gaze had picked up on the man too, but he'd never have expected Bodie to bring it up. Though come to think of it, Bodie had made quite a few remarks like that recently, usually fairly oblique, always snide.

Bodie still seemed to be waiting for an answer. Doyle shrugged and looked away. There was no point lying and saying he didn't know what Bodie meant.

"What, you mean you don't want it?" he heard Bodie's voice, still needling.

Doyle wondered suddenly if Bodie was feeling frustrated. He was frustrated enough himself at times. He turned to face Bodie square-on, meeting needling with bluntness.

"Oh, I want it all right," he said. "Not with that muppet at the bar, but I want it. It's an itch. I want to scratch it. You know what I mean, Bodie, don't you?"

Bodie blinked. It was he who'd first brought up the subject, but now he seemed uncomfortable with it.

"Yeah," he said finally.

"Ten years on the wagon, mate," Doyle pressed on. "If I'm going to fall off -- jump off, it won't be with some stranger I picked up in a pub."

Bodie had been looking down at the table, but now he raised his head to meet Doyle's gaze. Something was kindling in the dark depths of Bodie's eyes.

"Let's head back to the hotel," he said abruptly.

Doyle's heart leapt, and then settled down into a new rhythm, faster than before. He didn't answer, just downed his pint and got to his feet.

They had taken a twin room in a back-street hotel. Bodie had the key. He unlocked the door and Doyle crowded in behind him. He barely waited for the door to shut behind him before he had his hands inside Bodie's jacket, jerking him close.

They kissed, hard and bruising. Doyle slid his hands up Bodie's torso, hard muscle and soft cotton under his palms, Bodie's heart hammering away. Bodie's stubble was rough on Doyle's lips, sharp enough to sting.

Doyle drew his head back enough to see Bodie grinning at him, his eyes bright with exhilaration. Bodie jerked his head in the direction of the nearest bed, and Doyle nodded. He backed towards the bed, kissing Bodie all the while, until his knees hit something hard and they thumped down on the faded bedspread.

They rolled over, fighting for dominance but not caring who won. Doyle threw a leg over Bodie's arse, forcing him closer, rubbing against the hard mound under Bodie's slacks. Bodie groaned, but Doyle was frustrated by layers of denim and cotton.

"Hang on," he muttered, pushing Bodie out of the way so he could wriggle out of his jeans. He watched greedily as Bodie did the same, letting his clothes and shoes fall to the floor with uncharacteristic carelessness, exposing pale skin and dark hair. 

They came together again, skin on skin, overheating. Doyle's roving fingertips found the soft flesh around Bodie's middle, and made him squirm. Doyle had to laugh, but he soon shut up again when Bodie clamped down on the tendons in his neck, biting and nuzzling until Doyle could only gasp.

They soon fell into a pattern, rubbing and rutting against each other, urging each other on. Doyle let his eyes fall shut, enjoying the building tension. Doyle heard Bodie groan again and opened his eyes quickly enough to see Bodie's face go slack. His mouth had fallen open, his eyelids, shut, his expression so open and vulnerable that Doyle could only follow suit.

Afterward, Doyle flopped back on the mattress, gasping for breath. He felt Bodie's lips brush his shoulder and reached out blindly until his hand closed around Bodie's wrist. Within a minute, he was asleep.

.. .. ..

When Doyle woke, it was almost dawn. He could hear Bodie's breath in his ear, and knew Bodie was awake too. They lay there in silence, the light filtering in through the curtains slowly growing brighter.

"This wasn't our best idea ever, was it?" Doyle said finally.

Bodie grunted and flopped over onto his back. Out of the corner of his eye, Doyle could see Bodie staring up at the ceiling.

Doyle raised his head to see Bodie's face, and the thin grim line of Bodie's mouth.

Doyle thought his own expression must be something similar. "I don't want to spend the next few years looking over my shoulder, wondering if we'll be caught."

"Neither do I."

"And if we go on like this, that's what we'll be doing."

"Yeah."

"So -- ?"

Bodie scowled at him. "I agree, okay? I'll keep my hands off your arse if you don't strut it around in front of me."

Doyle didn't even try to protest that he didn't do that.

"We should get a move on," Bodie said after a minute. "We've to be in London at ten."

Doyle nodded. He took a deep breath and sat up. He felt Bodie's hand on his arm, pulling him back down for a kiss.

"Just one more time, Ray."

Doyle gave in willingly.

.. .. ..

Doyle was on edge over the next few days. 

He was pretty sure he could do this: he'd worked with people he fancied before, people who were off-limits to him. And maybe 'fancy' was too weak a word for it in this case, but he certainly wasn't going to use anything stronger.

It was Bodie he was worried about. But Bodie seemed fine. 

The very next weekend the two of them went out together and deliberately picked up a couple of girls. Bodie spent the evening goofing around, making Doyle and the girls laugh. Doyle realised they could make this work.

.. .. ..

They worked together another five years like that, in which Bodie ran after an old girlfriend, and Doyle got engaged to be married.

Maybe they could have done five more, but then Doyle got a metal girder slammed into his calf, and went over the edge of a low roof, falling onto that same leg.

It wasn't even that bad an injury, in the grand scheme of things. He was out of hospital within a week and back on his feet, even if that was with the help of crutches. The only problem was, the doctors said that was it -- he wouldn't be getting any better than that. Permanent muscle and nerve damage throughout the leg.

Bodie hadn't been in London when Doyle fell. He'd come back in a hurry two days later, and hung around Doyle's hospital bedside getting in the way of the nurses, eating Doyle's grapes and not mentioning Doyle's leg.

But Doyle's life wasn't in danger by any stretch of the imagination, and Cowley soon turned up to have a word with Doyle's doctor and send Bodie back to work. Bodie submitted with poor grace.

Doyle was almost relieved to be left alone. He needed space to think, space to absorb the reality of what had happened. He wasn't in too much pain. Just a persistent ache in his right leg and foot. Once he got out of hospital he spent the next few days sitting on his sofa watching TV, and not thinking about things. He wasn't feeling down, exactly. Just... adrift. In limbo. No idea what he was going to do next.

Cowley called round to Doyle's flat once, and they had a short talk. Doyle had made his mind up, and Cowley didn't try to dissuade him.

"Bodie will be back in London tomorrow," Cowley said just before leaving.

Doyle nodded.

Cowley stood there, like he was going to say something more, Doyle had no idea what. In the end he simply nodded and left, pulling the door shut with a click behind him.

The next time Doyle heard the buzzer was the following evening. He got up and pressed the intercom button to let Bodie in the outer door. He waited by the door to his flat until Bodie'd come up the stairs. When he saw Bodie's face, he knew Cowley had told him everything: the doctor's prognosis, the invaliding out, the desk job Doyle had refused.

Doyle turned to limp back into the kitchen.

"I was just putting dinner on," he said over his shoulder. "It might stretch to two."

He poured more frozen chips in the pan and added another piece of breaded cod.

That done, he sat down at the table to take the weight off his aching leg. It was almost dusk, and the room was starting to get dark.

Bodie was still standing silently in the doorway.

"You've been packing, I see," he said quietly.

He had to have seen the boxes scattered across the sitting room.

"I've got three weeks to find a new place." 

"Same here."

Doyle looked up sharply. Bodie's face was in shadow, and he could only make out the rough lines of it.

"I've just come from HQ," Bodie said. "Handed in my resignation letter."

For a second, Doyle could only stare.

"Oh," he said finally.

Bodie shrugged. "Didn't seem much point carrying on without you."

Doyle felt a sense of inevitability wash over him. This wasn't exactly a surprise. If their positions had been reversed, he couldn't see himself going on without Bodie either.

"Don't know yet what I'm going to do," Bodie added.

"Weird feeling, isn't it?" Doyle said, flashing him a quick grin. "Scary, too."

"You've got that right, mate. And sort of... freeing. I mean, we could do anything we want."

"Yeah."

Silence fell in the darkened kitchen. Doyle didn't need to see Bodie's face to know what he was thinking. He rose to his feet. In two quick steps Bodie was in front of him, his hands on Doyle's elbows.

"So how about it, eh?"

Doyle nodded.

"All right."

Then they both moved at the same time, falling into a kiss. They stumbled through the dark flat into the bedroom, where there was warmth and light and time to explore.

All the time in the world.


End file.
